5,000 pounds of astronaut-fodder fly without flame-outs

It ran five minutes late, but NASA's ISS resupply launch atop an Orbital ATK Antares rocket has gone off without a hitch.

Space-watchers were nervous about this one: it was the first Antares launch since October 2014, when US$200 million-plus worth of rocket exploded, destroying its payload and leaving NASA with more than $20 million worth of damage to its Wallops flight facility.

Experiments lofted to the ISS include wearable sensors (for watching astronaut health), and a test lighting system to better manage their diurnal cycles.

There's a “cold flames” experiment to test how different fuels burn in low gravity; and a radiation sensor, the fast neutron spectrometer, to improve measurement of radiation astronauts are exposed to.